A Record El Nino Has Ramped Up, So Expect A Wild Weather Ride Over The Next Year Or So

An image from August shows far warmer than normal
ocean waters in the eastern Pacific off the west coast
of South America as El Nino takes hold. Since 
August, that water has gotten even hotter. 

Climate change has made the world's weather more extreme: Worse storms, worse floods, worse droughts, weirder weather days.  

Now El Nino is starting to make everything worse. 

El Nino is now in full force,. Expect things to become especially wild for at least several months, well into next year.  Since this is uncharted territory with a record El Nino atop climate change, who knows how this will sugar off?

A statement released last week by the World Meteorological Organization  statement seems ominous: 

"'El Nino is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres."

The WMO added: 

"El Nino is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coning months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat, according to a new update."

But where? And how bad?

We don't know, exactly

It won't be armageddon, as some on social media breathlessly tell us.  Many of us will be fine, just marveling at the weird, sometimes scary weather. I don't want to minimize the fact that it will be tragic for some of us. 

And it will be expensive. Likely for all of us. Exactly what we end up with is still an open question, though we can forecast some of the broad brush effects. 

WHAT EL NINO IS DOING

At first, it might seem like El Nino is doing some of us a favor. As mentioned in a previous post, the Atlantic hurricane season so far is as lame as can be. El Nino is creating strong upper level winds over the tropical Atlantic, killing off any nascent tropical storms that want to form. 

A tropical storm or hurricane could still form between now and November, but we won't have many such storms. 

The eastern Pacific ocean is another story. The eastern Pacific Ocean is alive with hurricanes. One of them, Lowell, sideswiped Hawaii earlier this week, causing extensive damage. It's the second time a hurricane had trashed parts of Hawaii.  

El Nino pushes the warmest Pacific waters moved away from Asia and toward South America. The water becomes relatively cooler near Asia and Australia. Cooler water means less evaporation. And fewer showers and thunderstorms. Droughts result in southeast Asia and Australia. Destructive wildfires tend to break out in Indonesia and Australia. 

It also tends to get dry in southern Africa, sub-Sahara Africa and Brazil during El Ninos. Wet areas are a little less certain, although the southern United States tend to get pretty wet and stormy, even including tornado outbreaks  during the winter months of an El Nino.

NOAA is also telling us it will be a warmer than average winter along the northern tier of the United States, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, which is typical of an El Nino.

 There's a bunch of wildcards, though. Other factors could bend the winter jet stream, at times defying the will of El Nino

"A strong El Nino can tilt the odds toward certain temperature and precipitation patterns across different parts of the U.S., but it doesn't determine exactly how every storm, or even the entire winter, will play out," said Crystal Egger, a meteorologist and president of Monarch Weather Consulting.

That uncertainty applies to most other places in the world. 

COSTS/EFFECTS OF EL NINO

Whatever happens, the extreme weather with an El Nino can be expensive. 

The Super El Nino could lead to immediate global financial losses of nearly $1 trillion dollars in 2027. and up to $7.2 trillion over the ensuing six years, according to a September 8 report from Oxford Economics    As reported in supplychaiinbrai.com:

"Following extreme weather disruptions, both public and private sector funds are diverted toward reparations," Oxford Economics explain."While necessary, this expenditure restores lost production capacity rather than expanding it, which can crowed out investment in infrastructure upgrades, technology, education, R&D and so on."

The cost comes from everywhere, not just the physical damage. As supplychainbrain.com notes, these weather and climate disasters make it harder and more expensive to borrow money. Homeowners and businesses fall behind on loans. Damaged or devalued property becomes poorer collateral. 

Insurance covers some losses, but those disaster make premiums more expensive and make coverage harder to find. 

It's always difficult to calculate the cost of an event that hasn't really happened yet. So take the above figures with a grain of salt. Just know that every El Nina is expensive. This one will probably be more expensive than all the others. 

Given all the unknowns, it's hard to prepare for El Nino, but people - and governments are trying anyway.

In Great Britain, residents have been urged to have enough food and water stored at home to survive a few days without power or water services

British Environmental Secretary Angela Eagle said El Nino could create ever more extreme storms than the already big storms the UK has seen in recent years. 

"If you've got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for awhile before the emergency services can get to you,  you're going to be a lot better off than if you haven't. So some of it is that kind of preparation for just being a little more resilient," Eagle said.

Beyond that, we're not sure what will happen. There's a lot of hysterics about this El Nino. Some of it is justified.  To be blunt, people will die, crops will fail, people will go hungry. 

Until now, the strongest El Nino known to have occurred hit in 1877. Washington Post picks up the story: 

"The (1877 El Nino) fueled conditions that led to a global famine which killed more than 50 million people across India, China, Brazil and elsewhere. That's 3 to 4 percent of the estimated global population at the time, equal to at least 250 million people if it happened today."

Could it happen again?

The world is much warmer than it was in 1877, thanks to climate change. So the effects of the 2026-27 El Nino would be more extreme than the world saw 150 years. 

On the other hand, unlike in 1877, we know El Nino is coming. We have ways to prepare for droughts and extreme storms. Drought-prone areas can switch to dry tolerant crops. Resourced can be re-directed in advance to combat wildfires.  Residents of the American South can gird for flooding and severe storms this winter.

We won't be able to tie every big storm, flood or dry spell that we'll see in the coming months directly to El Nino. The only thing we can expect is a wild weather ride ov er the winter. 

Buckle your seat belts! 

Dry-Ish Week Continues In Vermont. Past Two Months Have Been Mostly Wet, Giving Us A Drought Cushion

Rain falls from thunderstorm clouds over Lake Champlain
as the sun shines through the rain, Photo looking west
from St. Albans, Vermont on July 10, 2025

The first part of summer in Vermont was wet, but that seems to be sputtering, at least for now. 

The last rains in the Green Mountain State were some scattered showers and thunderstorms central and south on July 4. Northwest Vermont has been dry for several days now. 

The storm that's soaking and/or will soak the Mid-Atlantic states and far southern New England won't really be a factor in Vermont. 

Forecast rainfall far south is now only expected to be a quarter inch at best. Not the half inch to an inch we previously thought might happen. That southern Vermont rain, however light, should come through later today through tomorrow morning. 

There's still a chance the storm could jog north, but don't bet the farm on that. 

Except for scattered sprinkles this afternoon, no rain is forecast after this southern Vermont episode until later Thursday and Friday when a weak cold front is expected to approach and then pass through. 

Although we could end up with some locally heavy downpours with that front, in general, rainfall isn't looking that impressive with that front, at least for now.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington
released this map today showing most of 
Vermont has had above normal rainfall over 
the last two months. Yellow area are at
least two inches above normal. Orange areas
are at least four inches on the plus side 

I'm not really worried about drought. I won't be unless weeks go by without much rain. 

These dry spells happen almost every July. And the dry weather will reduce moisture in the ground somewhat. That drying would slightly lessen the risk of flash flooding if torrential rains hit later this summer. 

But this week's dry spell hits as the last vestiges of last summer's dryness finally dissipates in Vermont. 

 The latest U.S. Drought Report, issued last Thursday, had only the tiniest stripe of Vermont encompassing just 1 percent of the state right along the Massachusetts border as "abnormally dry."  

That's the best we've been since at least the late spring of 2025.

Abnormally dry means it's sort of close to drought, but not really there. But overall, Vermont is super lucky. Judging from the latest Drought Monitor map, the only states doing as well with moisture as Vermont are Ohio, Indiana and maybe Michigan.

Rainfall for all of Vermont except parts of the far south has been above normal for the past two months. Some areas north are two inches on the plus side. This all erased lingering drought in eastern Vermont. 

Drought, or at least the maldistribution of rainfall,  has really been a thing in the United States this year. And the shifts in particular areas between flooding and drought and flooding again have been wild. 

Parts of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland were in pretty steep droughts prior to the deluges causing flash floods there this week, if you want an example

A huge El Nino is developing, which will really keep the weather whacky here in Vermont and in the rest of the world through the next year or so. Even wackier than the climate-changed weather weirdness we've already experienced in recent years.

In general, strong El Ninos cause very warm and dry late summers and autumns here in Vermont, though there's no guarantee that will happen, There's always exceptions. But for now, we can just hope for the increasingly rare type of Goldilocks summer in the Green Mountain State, not too dry, not too wet, not too hot, not too cold. 

The rest of this week will be sort of an imperfect Goldilocks type of period, so I guess we should all enjoy that. 

Looming El Nino Getting More Likely To Become "Super" It Means Ever More Extreme Weather On Climate-Fatigued Planet

A forecast map for the equatorial Pacific for 
late summer an early fall shows a strong El Nino
In the box, it shows much above normal water
temperature in the central and eastern Pacific
near the equator. 

Scientists have been telling us for months now that a new El Nino global pattern is about to start. That type of thing tends to warm up the world. Combine an El Nino with climate change, and you can take the global climate to new, hot, heights. 

Now, we're being told this could well turn into a "Super El Nino" and that makes the news even more potentially grim. At least if you're not a fan of punishing droughts, super storms and dangerous, record smashing heat waves.

Yes, that sort of thing is going on already, but a Super El Nino could make things much, much worse.   

Per the Washington Post: 

"During a typical El Nino, a warming patch of water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean influences what regions experience droughts, floods, extreme heat, hurricanes and declining sea ice. During relatively rare super El Nino events, happening once every 10 to 15 years on average, the effects may be stronger, more persistent and more widespread."

The Washington Post reports;

This El Nino "could break the record for El Nino intensity set in December, 20125, when sea temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific reached 2.8 degrees Celsius (5.04 degrees Fahrenheit) above average."

Each El Nino is different, because underlying natural weather patterns can affect it. And climate change makes the effects of El Nino even less certain. The effects of El Nino will probably peak during the upcoming winter. Overall,  some of those effects include:

Drought:

Sone tropical countries, like the Caribbean and Indonesia, could face serious droughts.  So could central and northern India, where a super El Nino can disrupt and even stop the annual monsoon season. Serious droughts have an excellent shot at developing in portions of Central Africa, Australia, the Philippines, Central America and northern Brazil.

The  El Nino could be really bad news for the western United States. Coming off a record warm winter, and unprecedented March heat that has already set the stage of water shortages, the El Nino could create an especially hot, dry summer in the West. 

However, El Ninos can cause unusual humidity in the West. That could lead to some beneficial rains, but also severe storms that would extend into the Plains.  Usually, the worst of the United States severe weather season usually tapers off in June, but this year, it could help extend the season longer, if the El Nino develops fast enough. 

While certain areas of the world would get much drier under a super El Nino, the overall threat of flooding in the world would increase due to higher levels of atmospheric moisture brought on by the el Nion

Storms and Hurricanes

On the bright side, the potential Caribbean and Central African droughts would be related to a suppressed Atlantic hurricane season.  Disturbances coming off the west coast of Africa would be weaker and less frequent, lessening the chances that any of them would develop into hurricanes. 

Much more importantly, El Nino would contribute to strong upper level winds in areas of the tropical Atlantic. Those strong upper winds cut wannabe hurricanes off at the pass, destroying tall thunderstorms before they can organize into a tropical storm.  

The U.S. got a break last year with no landfalling hurricanes. An El Nino could make us lucky for the second year in a row. But that comes with a big caveat. El Ninos tend to reduce the number of hurricanes. But it doesn't eliminate them. It takes only one hurricane to cause a cataclysm. We're not entirely safe. 

There will be enough cataclysms with or without hurricanes anyway. Next winter, if the strong El Nino develops, the South, including Florida, would become cool and stormy, with the risk of wintertime severe storms and tornado outbreaks. 

We'd also see an increase in flooding across Peru and Ecuador, sections of northern and eastern Africa and in the Middle East. 

Heat Waves

Virtually every place on Earth would be at risk for punishing, record heat waves. Africa, parts of the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the southern U.S. and possibly Australia would be most at risk. 

If this super El Nino does in fact get underway, 2027 has an excellent shot of becoming the hottest year on record, even besting the especially torrid 2024, the current record holder. Because of a lag between the development of an El Nino and how it affects global weather patterns, I doubt this year will be the world's warmest. 

Climate change has created a sort of step-up trend in which pretty much every El Nino creates a new record for global warmth. Between El Ninos and during La Ninas, which should cool the Earth, global temperatures tend to just level off.

"Due to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases, the climate system cannot effectively exhaust the heat released in a major El Nino event before the next El Nino comes along an pushes the baseline upward again," Defense Department meteorologist Eric Webb said in the Washington Post. 

 VERMONT EFFECTS

It's always nearly impossible to tease out what effects an El Nino might have on a pinpoint area like Vermont. But we can give some general thoughts that aren't exactly a forecast, based on what we've seen in past super- El Ninos

The most noticeable effects here are warm winters. During the 2016 super El Nino, Burlington what was its warnest and second warmest winters on record in 2015-16 and 2016-17.  (The warmest winter is now 2023-24)

The 2015 El Nino might have helped contribute to the hottest December readings in Vermont that year, breaking records set December, 1998 during a previous strong El Nino. 

Chances are next winter won't be the kind of long, drawn out, persistently cold affair we endured this year. 

As for storms, it seems that Vermont is at a higher risk of trouble, but no guarantees. It's hard to know whether El Nino had anything to do with it, ut the Great Ice storm of January, 1998 and serious flooding in June and July of that year were doing a super El-Nino.

I also recall some spring floods during the 1982-83 El Nino, mostly along Lake Champlain due to persistent rains and snows in April and May, 1983. 

Although we had some notably wet months during the 2015-16 El Nino in Vermont, there wasn't really much in the way of serious flooding, though there were some local flash floods in the warmer months. 

 

Now It's Official: El Nino Is Here

Schematic map of North America showing the 
typical effects of an El Nino.  Canada, 
unfortunately gets warmer and drier, while the
southern United States gets wetter and stormier.

I've been advertising for weeks now in this blog that the El Nino global weather pattern and its extremes was on its way. 

Now, it's officially here. 

Which means there's a good chance the world could see its hottest on record year this year, or more likely in 2024.

El Nino tends to make the world a hotter place.  The hottest year on record so far, 2016, was during the last El Nino.

The opposite of El Nino, known as La Nina, tends to cool the world a bit.  Until now, we've been in a La Nina for more than three years. Even though it's suppose to be cooler, the past three years have been among the warmest, but not the warmest on record on a global basis.  

Already, global sea surface temperatures on average are the hottest on record. Hotter oceans can release some of their heat to the atmosphere, so we might be on our way already to new global record high temperatures. 

Most of the time, but not always, El Nino brings warmer, drier weather to Canada and the northern United States. That's kind of bad news for us in Vermont, since it's already dry. 

It's really bad news for Canada, much of which is suffering from drought and a ton of forest fires. They really need some cool, wet weather up there in the Great (no longer so) White North. 

El Nino usually makes the southern United States wetter, which increases the risk of floods. But it does reduce the amount of hurricanes. The question, as noted in a past post here, is whether super warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean will overrule El Nino and produce a lot of hurricanes anyway.   

These trends aren't guarantees. There could always be other factors at play in the atmosphere that could make this El Nino not play by the "rules."

How strong this El Nino becomes also matters. A stronger one could make the extremes associated with the phenomenon even more pronounced. Many of the long range computer models suggest this El Nino will be on the strong side.  It already seems to have a lot of momentum as it develops.

There's no telling how long this El Nino will last. Most of them that start in the spring or summer, like this one, last at least through the following winter.  Which could disappoint Vermont snow lovers, as El Ninos more often than not suppress our cold season snowfall. 

However, in general, El Nino doesn't have quite as predictable effect on Vermont's weather and climate than in some other areas of the world. True to form, here in Vermont, weather and storms will always try to surprise us. 

 

La Nina Officially Over After Three Year Run. Will Its Demise Cause Even More Weather Extremes?

Map of global sea surface temperatures as they compared to
normal. This was October, 2020, during a peak
in the recent long La Nina. Notice all the blue off the 
west coast of South America depicting cool water
temperatures associated with La Nina. This same area
would have warmer than normal water temperatures
during an opposite phenomenon all El Nino.

 La Nina, a periodic cooling of the eastern Pacific Ocean that has lasted a weirdly long time of three years, is finally kaput, the National Weather Service announced this past week. 

This isn't exactly great news. 

La Nina tends to cool the world's climate a little bit. The disconcerting part of the latest La Nina is there was virtually no cooling during this three-year event. Global temperatures set new highs around 2016, and essentially flatlined since. 

If a strong La Nina can't cool the world a little bit, what will its absence do? 

On top of that, weather extremes associated with climate change continued apace despite the supposed cooling effects of La Nina.

The fear is, now that La Nina is gone, we are priming ourselves for a likely soon-to-arrive El Nino. El Nino  a warming of the eastern Pacific and tends to push global temperatures up. This created its own set of big weather dramas. 

We really don't need that. 

As the Washington Post reports:

"The probable return of El Nino raises concerns about how it could accelerate global warming and crises of climate change. The last major El Nino episode in 2016 sent average global temperatures to record highs and contributed to devastating rainforest loss, coral bleaching, polar ice melt and wildfires." 

That said, we don't know how strong the likely a looming El Nino would be. If it's not a big one and doesn't raise eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures all that much, then the effects would be somewhat muted.

That doesn't mean weather extremes would stop.  Even if the eastern Pacific were in Goldilocks mode - not too hot, not too cold -  big storms, floods and other calamities won't stop. Climate change is already priming the pump for that kind of thing. The weirdness will just shift around to different places and maybe take different forms. 

Most forecasts say the current state of affairs should shift into El Nino as the year goes on. El Ninos tend to warm the world. Aside from possibly pushing the overall global temperature to new record heights, storminess, drought, heat waves and other big troubles could also ramp up. 

After all, a hotter world is a more energized one. So the weather disasters could really start to pile up. 

Especially in the next El Nino is a biggie. If so, watch out! 

Here in the United States, La Nina in general tends to create colder, stormier conditions in the northern United States and warmer, drier stuff in the South. During the just-deceased La Nina, there was a fair share of chilly, stormy weather in the northern United States west of the Great Lakes, but it wasn't consistent.   The Northeast generally stayed mostly on the warm side during this.

The south has been unusually warm most of the time in the past three years. 

If we get an El Nino the southern United States would be slightly cooler and stormier in general, especially in the winter. 

On the bright side an El Nino tends to lower the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. That would be welcome after the slew of powerfully destructive hurricanes between 2016 and 2021. That El Nino  creates strong and veering winds aloft over swaths of the Atlantic Ocean. Those winds rip apart thunderstorms that are wannabe hurricanes. 

El Nino also makes drought somewhat less likely in the prime crop growing regions in the middle of the U.S, so there are benefits,

Both La Nina and El Nino are naturally occurring cycles. Both change global weather patterns. It's something humanity has dealt with for probably thousands of years and managed to carry on. Both phenomena created winners and losers.

Now, though, climate change is enhancing the negative effects of La Nina and El Nino.  Increasingly, both La Nina and El Nino create losers and losers.  

2022 Was A Bad Disaster Year Across The Globe. More Data Is In

Destruction from Hurricane Ian in Florida in 
September, 2022. It was the world's most expensive
weather and climate related disaster of last year.

 The world was beset by around weather-related disasters in 2022 that caused well over $300 billion in damage, according to insurance analysts. 

The actual numbers depend on the analyst, each of which has different methods of establishing losses. 

As Jeff Masters in Yale Climate Connections writes, the insurance broker Gallagher Re counted 42 disasters costing $360 billion, with 39 percent of that being insured losses. 

Meanwhile, another insurance broker, Aon, says there were 37 weather related disasters in 2022 with a total economic loss of $313 billion. That's 4 percent above the inflation adjusted average for the 21st century so far. 

Insurers are seeing a distinct upward trend in the inflation-adjusted cost of disasters since about 1990 and that trend has accelerated in the past decade or so. 

As the insurance analysts note, it's difficult to tease apart what proportion of the disaster losses are brought on by climate change and which part of the problem is created by increases in wealth and exposure to potential disasters. 

Hurricane Ian in Florida during late September is an excellent case in point. It caused roughly a third of the insured and economic losses in the 2022 list of billion dollar disasters.

Climate change might have helped the hurricane reach the high intensity it reached. But the storm hit parts of Florida that have seen intense coastal development, despite the risk of destructive hurricanes with or without climate change. 

The year saw three so-called "mega disasters" defined as a calamity causing ay least $20 billion in damage. The three in 2022 were Hurricane Ian, a drought in the United States (about $21 billion in losses) and another drought in Europe (about $25 billion)

DEATHS

Heat waves tend to be the most deadly type of weather disaster. You wouldn't think so watching the news, because heat waves are simply not that photogenic. Heat waves are sort of the neutron bomb of weather calamities. Buildings, trees, and other property emerge from heat waves largely unscathed, but the human cost is immense.

This was true in 2022. The deadliest disaster last year was extreme heat waves in Europe, which caused about 40,000 direct and indirect deaths, according to a Gallagher Re analysis of country-level excess mortality statistics, as reported by Masters in Yale Climate Connections.  

In terms of direct deaths alone, the worst 2022 disasters were monsoons in India, with 2,047 fatalities and other monsoons in Pakistan, responsible for 1,735 deaths.  

Three African nations, Nigeria, South Africa and Somalia, had their costliest disaster on record in 2022. Nigeria suffered $4.2 billion in damage fro flooding; another flood in South Africa caused $3.5 billion in losses. 

Drought in Somalia that started in 2021 and continued well into 2022 caused $1.1 billion in damage. The figures are adjusted for inflation.  

Vermont's Long Streak of Benign Weather: When Does The Other Shoe Drop?

A peaceful scene on one of our decks in St. Albans, Vermont
this morning. We've been mostly lucky with safe weather
in the Green Mountain State for a few years now. When
will the other shoe drop?

 My husband says I can be too negative sometimes.

He's absolutely right. 

Although I very often see the positive side of things, I just sometimes find the dark cloud in the silver lining.  I just can't help it, I guess. That's what I've been feeling about the weather in Vermont lately. 

By lately, I actually mean the past two or three years. 

Every day, I wake up to some new weather extreme and catastrophe somewhere in the world. We've always had weather disasters, but climate change is making many of those calamities worse than they otherwise would be.

Here in Vermont, almost nothing in that regard lately, thank goodness. We've been coasting along with pretty benign conditions for a few years. Our current beautiful, relatively cool summer is Example A.  Don't get me wrong, I'm really, really enjoying every minute of this benign weather. 

Also, think about it.  We've been lucky for awhile now. Oh sure, we've had our share of weird weather. Sometimes stuff we hadn't experienced before, like 95 degree heat in May in 2020, or the unprecedented March tornado that touched down in Middlebury last year, things like that.

And we've had our usual local flash floods, wind storms, ice storms, snow storms, rain storms, droughts, strange temperature swings. It's Vermont. The weather can be challenging every once in awhile. We deal with it.   

But honestly, truly destructive weather has been pretty rare in Vermont since the big flood and windstorm of Halloween, 2019, which prompted disaster declarations in several Vermont counties. (True, another federal disaster was declared for damaging floods in Bennington and Windham Counties in July, 2021, but flooding was fairly localized, and not super extreme by modern standards).

We in Vermont have been blissfully skating by for the past three years. In that time, some areas of the nation have been blitzed by repeated storms, floods, wildfires or other emergencies. Examples are everywhere. It seems like every time I turn around, a new extreme derecho or storm is sweeping South Dakota and Iowa.  Yeah, yeah, I know they get a lot of storms there, but the ones lately have been bizarre.

Fires keeping hitting California, floods seemingly come one after another along the East Coast and Midwest, and hurricanes seem to be competing with each other, trying to see which one can wreak the most havoc on the American coastline. 

Meanwhile, on our safe little island in Vermont, we've been lucky.  T weather has been benign. Nice. Pleasant. Safe. You won't hear me complain about that!  

Arguably the last really serious weather disaster in Vermont
was the flood and windstorm on Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2019.
This tree fell over in our yard during that storm, '
crushing Jeff's Jeep. 

Today's another gorgeous day in Vermont. We had a lovely sunrise.  It'll be another mostly sunny afternoon with pretty, puffy clouds dotting the blue sky, comfortable temperatures and low humidity. Looking ahead over the next few days, the weather will stay nice. We're blessed again! 

Since I can't help myself, though, a small part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sooner or later, we'll have a year like 1998 or 2011, when weather disasters swept Vermont over and over again. Or will we have something else, like the deadly heat waves that attacked Europe, Russia and southwestern Canada in recent years?

Climate change is in the back of my mind, too. The weather in the Green Mountain State has been generally gorgeous, but still, certainly warmer than what was considered average back in the day.

Climate change is also driving storms that are more fierce, wetter, more violent than in the past.  When will our luck run out? 

I guess it's not worth obsessing over, because all we can do is enjoy what we've got. Sure, we can adjust our lifestyle to help combat climate change and elect leaders who will do the same. Yes, we can still mitigate things and make the future climate less bad than it otherwise would be.

But really, the next Big Bad Thing in Vermont is inevitable, and we'll just have to brace for it. Hopefully it will not come anytime soon.  After work today, I'll go out on the deck, maybe with a gin and tonic or a glass of wine, enjoy the gorgeous summer landscape, smell the flowers Jeff and I planted and listen to the symphony of bird song. 

If that's what it takes to calm me down and erase my fears, well, there are worse things I can do.